Whore City --  John McCain criticized the First Moron for scrapping rather than trying to fix
the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty and its efforts to curb heat-trapping greenhouse emissions.

``I wouldn't have done that,'' said McCain. ``I don't agree with everything in the Kyoto Protocol
but I think it is a framework we could have continued to work with. We could have fixed it.''

The treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, calls on industrial nations to cut heat-trapping emissions to
below 1990 levels by 2012. President Bush sparked an international outcry when he said on
March 28 that it was unworkable and discriminates against the United States.
Bush said he would not submit it to the Senate for ratification.

Negotiators in Kyoto had specified that major industrialized countries which are the worst polluters
should be assigned most of the emission cutbacks. Instead, Bush said, developing nations must be
included in any mandatory cuts on carbon dioxide emissions.

At a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee that McCain chairs, James E. Hansen,
head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, somewhat bolstered Bush's contention that
regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants is unworkable at present.

``It is impractical to stop carbon dioxide from increasing in the near term, as fossil fuels are the engine
of the global economy,'' Hansen said. ``However ... further reduction to constant emissions is feasible,
especially since countries such as the United States have made only modest efforts at conservation.''

McCain said there is plenty of evidence of climate change due to recent human activity and the United
States should help protect developing countries who face greater risks of loss of life and deprivation.

``The developed countries, like the United States, must do its share in addressing this global problem,''
he said, citing a United Nations report that found some emissions reductions may produce net economic
gains for developed countries.

``This sounds like the basis for action to me,'' McCain said.

But Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., described the results of work done by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change as ``political documents'' written by ``U.N. environmental activists.''

``When President Bush said the Kyoto Protocol was dead, he was merely stating the obvious,'' Hagel said.

He added that the United States needs ``to demonstrate a commitment to act domestically before it will be
able to build international support for action absent the Kyoto Protocol.''